Pellet comparison

[ajwoodman]

I cannot believe there can be such a difference in pellets. Newbie here, first year of burning pellets and I must say I was a little disappointed in the output of heat from my Big E. I have burnt about 8 bags of pellets with a whole lot of ash. My window gets really sooty and dirty daily. I purchased three tons of Athens pellets back in June. They are all nicely stacked down in my basement. What a disappointment. Where I work we are selling Lignetics. I bought three bags, and decided to check out any differences. Let me tell you, I cleaned the stove, loaded with two bags of Lignetics. It has been burning since 7:00 last night. I have it on thermostat so it ran on #1 setting basically all night. The window is nice and clean, hardly any ashes and the heat output is AWESOME. #1 setting feels like the #3 with the Athens pellets. And the #3 setting will blow you away. Wow, wish I hadn't done that. I think maybe I will try to mix them. What does anybody think???? I never would have guessed there could be such a difference. Live and Learn.
I think I will check out other pellet brands too (for future purchases). Any body have any favorites???

 

[Xena]

Yes as you can now attest, pellets are not all equal.

My top five faves (not necessarily in this order) are:


Cleanfire
Barefoot
Lignetics
Stove Chow
NEWP - green lettered bag


The reason these five are my favorites are because
they throw a lot of heat and burn cleaner than other
brands I've tried which were (LG Granules, Bio Plus, Energex, and Dry Creek).

 

[tinkabranc]

Brands I have tried so far:

Green Supreme- NEWP (my fav)
Warm Front
Narragansett (think they are out of biz now)
Fireside Ultra
Energex

 

[Flammam]

My favorites

NEWP (tan bag red letters)
cubex
NEWP green supreme(burn hot and fast)
Pike(got 5 tons)

Stay away

Stove chow

 

[Jester]

Lignetics-burn clean and hot. Drawback is they are long (some 3") which bind the feed auger somtimes, until it snaps the pellet
Pennington-Burns hot, clean and no issues
Tidy Timbers-Had no issues
Maine Pellets- Look and smell just like the lignetics, except none are longer than 1/2". They seem to have a slightly higher ash content but burn nice and hot.
Ton of softwood coming Sat, will add to list Sunday

 

[teddy1971]

I am currently using three different types of pellets.

Lignetics - 2 Tons
Dry Creek - 2 Tons
Fireside Ultra - 1 Ton

This is my first season burning too and I must say that the Lignetics are the best and the Dry Creek are a close second. The Fireside Ultra is good but the heat is not great as the others and there is more soot on my glass than with the lignetics or dry creek. Luckily I only have one ton of the Fireside so I'm burning them first to clear my inventory. I prefer to have the lignetics and dry creek when the dead of winter comes in december. I know now that when spring comes I will purchasing all lignetics for the 09/10 winter season. I'm hoping to get them for 180-230 per ton in May.